What’s a Cupra Formentor, and why should you care?
The first original car from Cupra may have lively performance and plenty of visual flair, but does anybody know what it is they’re looking at? We take it to meet its potential public
Kick down and the Formentor squirts forward like toothpaste being expelled by the force of an elephantine stomp
The 30-something fella’s light grey eyes stare at me with a combination of bewilderment and irritation. Admittedly, it’s not every day you get accosted in a Basildon car park by a man in a purple face mask soliciting your views on a new Spanish auto brand called Cupra.
‘Seat. That’s a Seat trim level, isn’t it?’ says the Merc A-Class driver, unloading his son’s buggy in the persistent rain. I point across to the Formentor VZ Edition, and launch into an explanation that this high-riding estate car – or coupe SUV as Cupra classifies it – is a new, standalone model to ramp up the launch of Seat’s spin-off, premium brand. ‘That badge is horrible. I don’t like the design either, it’s not my kind of car. Sorry, I haven’t got time for this,’ he says, and heads for JD Sports.
The design gets a similar thumbs-down from another Mercedes driver. But Alison, stepping out of a Porsche Macan, is the opposite, murmuring her approval, particularly for the unusual copper flourishes on alloys and badge. Would she consider it after the Porsche? ‘That’s my husband’s car. I’d like a Mini, but we’ve got three kids.’
Looks like the road to winning hearts and minds will be a long one for Cupra.
Rewind four hours, and the Formentor’s standard 12-inch touchscreen is navigating me through drizzly darkness towards Basildon. New brand will meet new town, forged from the postWorld War Two ideal of repatriating London’s slum-dwellers to new council homes on maze-like estates, and into new jobs in local industry or services amid spectacularly geometric, brutally modernist architecture.
The idealism didn’t last, dented by the Thatcher-era sell-off of council houses and the blows dealt to local industry by globalisation and digitalisation. But Essex people are typically friendly, aspirational and game – take it from this local lad – and so should be just the type to give the Cupra Formentor a fair crack against an Audi Q3, Merc GLA or Volvo XC40.
Given my destination, I should be wirelessly streaming local legends Alison Moyet or Depeche Mode via Apple CarPlay. It might drown out the turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine’s percussive burble, similar to that mued drilling sound from your neighbour’s DIY. And, after a while, just as annoying. Similarly taxing, on this stretch of coarse tarmac, the body is fidgeting away like a stone being dragged across the seabed.
I double check the digital instrument binnacle: tiny logos top centre display the selected drive mode, and sure enough the entwined harpoons of the Cupra badge – signalling maximum attack mode – are there. Except when they’re not there: navigation instructions overlay this area, which makes it impossible to precisely toggle the drivetrain, chassis and suspension settings when directions are coming thick and fast. Thumbing the mode button toggles through the set – Comfort, Sport, Cupra, Individual and Off-Road – in just the one direction; usability could be improved by a bidirectional approach. Find Comfort and the Formentor relaxes. The exhaust drone lifts off, the tense damping achieves a higher state of comfiness, and the accelerator needs another 25º of travel to foment launch. And launch it most certainly does. The blown 2.0-litre engine has catapulted a host of VW Group cars, including the Golf R, but the 306bhp Formentor shades them all, and has the same relentless wave of torque, with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission that can feed all four wheels. ⊲
Kick down in Sport or Cupra mode (which hold the revs higher than in Comfort, eliminating the occasional lowdown blip of whistly turbo spool-up), and the Formentor squirts forward like toothpaste being expelled by the force of an elephantine stomp, accompanied by a baritone drilling which eases into tenor as you shift from second to third gear. It’s ferociously, incessantly fast, on demand. The brakes bite hard to wipe it off too.
But now’s the time to follow the M25’s active speed limits. At 70mph, the engine cruises at 2100rpm, with a coast function letting it slumber if you lift off briefly. A low grumble emanates from the Bridgestone Turanza all-weather tyres. The suspension – struts up front, and a multi-link rear axle (on higher performance Formentors) – conveys a sense of underlying tautness, but the 19-inch wheels only occasionally thump through craters or over crests. In Comfort, this is docile enough to be a daily driver, assuming you could live with the fuel consumption: it’s certified at 33.2mpg – we saw high 20s on the trip computer.
The sun has risen as we approach Basildon, though it’s invisible behind milky grey cloud, merging with the colourless tower blocks. I swing the Formentor into a car park – the steering is light and direct, and pleasingly pointy at low speeds. From the driver’s seat, you see a bonnet pinched in two places to form pronounced waves, reminding me of the crisp, curled point formed as cake icing tapers off. It’s a distinctive touch, mirrored in the exaggerated body-side accents. Clearly, neat details are an important part of Cupra’s push into the public consciousness. So what is Cupra and what does it stand for? CEO Wayne Griths calls it an ‘unconventional challenger brand… focused on design and performance.’ Seat, VW’s Spanish division, elevated Cupra from trim level to standalone brand in 2018. Back then, Seat was selling 10,000 Leon Cupras a year. Last year, volume had grown to 25,000, driven by the Cupra version of the Ateca SUV. With the Formentor, the target is to crack 50,000.
The Cupra Leon and Ateca run much the same ferocious engine as this Formentor, and share the same colour and material themes. But their exterior design and cabin architecture are fundamentally the same as their Seat siblings. The Formentor is different – it’s the first model that’s bespoke to Cupra. It will offer a range of seven drivetrains, rising from 148bhp 1.5-litre petrol to this 306bhp 4Drive flagship via three other petrols and two plug-in hybrids. The entry-level 1.5 will cost from £27,300, this range-topping VZ Edition is £43,480.
The Formentor is a little longer than the Ateca but the roof sits 100mm lower. That makes it look like a high-riding estate car, on big wheels pushed out to the corners. The passenger cell is set back, accentuating the length of the bonnet, a classic German premium design trope. It’s a beefy, handsome design, helped by Cupra’s trademark matte paint and more copper than the Metropolitan Police. Even the optional Brembo calipers are bronze. The pale gloss sills and wheelarch trim that contrast with the body colour feel fresh, and there’s not an ounce of chrome. But I can’t help feeling that using Seat’s grille and headlamp shape, plus the same infotainment graphics and air vents, undermines the independent brand message.
Our car park punters admit the Formentor stands out, but they’re not won over. Maybe we’ll find more converts in nearby Southend-on-Sea. The 10-mile schlep provides a chance to compare chassis settings. In Comfort the steering is a touch too light and accelerator pedal a touch too lethargic. And even in this most compliant damper profile, there will be people who find the ride too firm: some rough Southend tarmac has the Formentor niggling at 30mph, and the wide tyres murmuring.
Sport is the dynamic sweet spot, injecting a little more directness and heft to the rack; Cupra turns it into a nightclub doorman – heavy-set but surreptitiously alert. It reminds me of piloting RS Audis. Personally I’d default to the tactility of Sport’s steering and throttle settings, though the downside is the rev-happy transmission map: the simple workaround is to shift via the switchblade-quick steering wheel paddles.
There’s an Individual mode too, with a slider to select from 15 different damper settings but you’ll need patience and a seismometer to detect the differences. The grades allow different cornering attitudes from the stability programme too.
On Southend’s main drag of seafront arcades, I spot Perrie and Joe taking in the sea view beside a Mercedes A45 AMG. It’s Perrie’s – the tree surgeon fancies a C63 next. But Joe, with ⊲
It’s a little longer than the Ateca but the roof is 100mm lower, so it looks like a high-riding estate
a fondness for old Leon Cupras, is smitten. He clocks the 18-inch discs, raves about the colour palette, and gives the 4Drive instant respect for its Golf R DNA. As they showily accelerate off for lunch, the AMG fires an exhaust salvo of pops and snarl. You wouldn’t catch the Formentor doing anything so uncouth.
This stretch has hosted Max Power cruises, including many a modified Seat hatch. But there are no burn-outs between the palm trees today, nor queues at the gaudy ice cream parlours. A touch of Miami? On this wet Tuesday, Southend’s twin town seems a far closer fit: Sopot, on the Baltic sea in Poland.
Time to head north and pile on the miles. The rain is torrential on the A131, but that’s of no concern to the Formentor. Long stretches of wide, straight carriageway offer the possibility to hurtle past multiple cars at a time, the four-pot bellowing vigorously. Up comes a sodden roundabout. An ageing silver CLK convertible gingerly creeps forward like a reluctant coastal swimmer on a chilly day; the Formentor tips in beside it, the front wheels find ceaseless grip and the rear end gracefully pirouettes around following the nose’s lead, then you power on in third gear. Ahead are some soaking country roads to carve, then sopping motorway to cover as we head onto Hertfordshire. What to make of the first bespoke Cupra? The coupe SUV concept is very zeitgeisty, and with its vast rear passenger space and 420-litre boot, practicality has not been sacrificed for style. It’s a distinctive body wrapped in a cool design, and feels well-crafted and premium in this range-topping spec.
But as much fun as a 306bhp four-wheel-drive hot hatch is, it feels anchored in Cupra’s past, with its near 200g/km of carbon emissions and boy-racer baggage.
Cupra has two strong cards in its bid for recognition: design and electrification. While the people of Essex do not universally agree, to these eyes the Formentor looks handsome and fresh. And the likes of Tesla and Polestar have shown that electrification is a great leveller, letting new brands shake up the status quo. Cupra executives know this, which explains the Formentor’s two hybrids and the brand’s el-Born concept, a vision of a high-performance, pure-electric hot hatch. That approach – sustainable, electrified performance, wrapped in distinctive, premium design – could prosper. The Formentor can meet those values, just not with this drivetrain. I look forward to driving the hybrids and mainstream petrol cars, coming next year. Like Basildon in the 1950s, Cupra’s future has promise. But it’s not yet clear how the story will end.
As much fun as a 300bhp all-wheel-drive hot hatch is, it feels anchored in Cupra’s past